Hello fellow coffee peeps! 

We're a small indepent retailer that runs a couple of drive-thru's in Southwest Washington and we've been going back and forth on milk temperatures for some time now. I'm curious what the rest of the community defines as industry standard?

At our shops these seem to be the appreciated standards.

Kids Temp - 120 F

Regular - 150-160

Xtra Hot - 170-180

Obviously we accommodate those very "picky" customer's requests. 

What do you guys do at your stores/cafes/drive-thru's ?

Thanks in advance for your time!

 

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I'm not quite sure there is a consensus on a standard for the industry, butaybe I'm wrong:) we usually adjust temp for each drink that we make, smaller drinks being the coolest, larger drinks being warmer. Here's what that looks like:

Macchiato: 130, it's a small drink, meant to be drank rather quickly. If you steam it too hot, it can have a very negative effect on the espresso.
Cappuccino (5oz): 140, again, small drink, too hot ruins the experience.
Latte (12&16oz): 150-160, it can handle warmer temps and needs to stay warm longer.

If a customer asks for extra hot in a ceramic, we just preheat the hell out of the cup, so they practically burn themselves on the lip (not really, but you get the idea) this gives them the illusion of x hot without compromising the quality of the drink.

Of course that's just how we do it, now you'll see all the other options out there;)

We do 120˚ for kids drinks

140 for our traditional Italian Capp. (6 oz drink)

150-160 for normal lattes/flavored lattes, etc.

170 is extra hot. If they want it hotter, we kindly let them know that if we go hotter it will scald.

That's our norms. Good luck!

I think 150 would be the standard. At 150 the milk naturally releases sugars making you milk slightly sweeter than it started. I always go to 150 unless its kids temp or someone tells me to go hotter.

At the shop which I work, we steam to 130-135 for a macchiato, 140-145 for everything else, as milk starts to noticeably lose sweetness at and after that point.

(The owner would tell you we steam everything 135-140, but in practice it varies based on drink size)

+1

I think its also worth mentioning that you should pair this with a regular thermometer calibration program. If your baristas steam without thermometers, calibrate them regularly as well.


Emily Wiersma said:

We do 120˚ for kids drinks

140 for our traditional Italian Capp. (6 oz drink)

150-160 for normal lattes/flavored lattes, etc.

170 is extra hot. If they want it hotter, we kindly let them know that if we go hotter it will scald.

That's our norms. Good luck!

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